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A paragon serving the cause of music

His life's mission is to serve the cause of carnatic music

SINGER IVL Sastry Photo: C.V. Subrahmanyam

His first love is music, the carnatic idiom in particular. His life's mission is serving its cause selflessly. A scion of a family of noted muscians, he was born to Indrakanti Lakshminarayana, a renowned vocalist, trained under the expert tutelage of veena virtuoso Tumarada Sangameswara Sastry, and Annapurna, a tuneful singer of a wide repertoire of traditional songs of piety, at Penugollu on March 23, 1927 and was initiated into vocal music by his father himself at a tender age. Later, he mastered mridangam under the able guidance of the maestro of the instrument Mullapudi Lakshmana Rao besides getting to know playing on flute and kanjeera by self effort. A guru honest to the core, has tremendous enthusiasm for teaching, and most of his disciples and all his progeny including grand children today stand placed as performing vocalists and instrumentalists. With such achievements to his credit, he still is synonymous for simplicity.

That is Indrakanti Venkata Lakshmana Sastry, popularly known as IVL Sastry. Despite being on the verge of joining the revered group of octogenarians next month, he looks so deceptive of his age, still energetically guiding the affairs of Sangeetha Kala Samithi, Sangeetha Janakulam, besides being a member on the experts committee, Department of Culture, HRD., president, Samskara Bharathi (local branch), secretary, Thyagaraja Aaradhana Trust., examiner for MA in Music, Telugu University, Cultural Adviser of all Kendriya Vidyalayas, contributing editor of the International Spiritual Magazine, Mihira, so on and so forth.

The Sangeetha Kalaa Samithi which has been organising monthly concerts of classical music since 1974, and the Sangeetha Janakulam which has been giving coaching in classical music free of cost besides organising recitals regularly on every second Saturday since 1979, were founded by him.

By choice, Sastry was felicitated by many a prestigious institute, Bharathi Gaana Sabha, BHPV Sangeetha Madhuri, Ravidra Kalaasamskrithi, Sanaathana Dharma Charitable Trust founded by Sadguru K. Sivananda Murthy, Rotary and Lions Club's and many of the likes. The list of awards that came his way too is too long. The MN award of the World Teachers' Trust, Charla Ganapathi Sastry award by Sri Vijaya Thyagaraja Sangeetha Sabha, gold medal by Visakha Music Academy, outstanding service for music award by Sankar Foundation, Emani's award by Kalaavani, LSRK award by Poornodaya Star Art Guild besides the titles Poorna Purusha conferred by Viswa Samaikya Gnana Yoga Peetham, Sangeetha Vaachaspathi by Maha Saaktha Dharmika Samsthan, Sangeetha Praveena by Sangeetha Kalaa Samithi, Sangeetha Kalaa Tapasvi by Jagdguru Sri Sankaracharya Sarada Peetham are but only a few even among the notables.

No wonder, he stands hailed a paragon of self-effacing zeal personified promoting, propogating and preserving the art of traditional music for posterity.

A. RAMALINGA SASTRY.

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